Nato warns of strike against cyber attackers

Wed Jun 9 12:28:34 UTC 2010

> No, but we can and do require cars to have functional brakes and 
> minimum tread depths, and to be tested periodically.
> 
> Obviously this is acceptable because the failure modes for cars 
> are worse, but the proposed solution is less intrusive being after the fact.

Grandma does not go check her tread depth or check her own brake pads and
discs for wear.  She lets the shop do that.  I was hoping I didn't have to
get pedantic and that people could differentiate between "I pay the shop a
few bucks to do that for me" and "I take responsibility personally to drive
my car in an appropriate fashion" (which includes things like "I take my
car to the shop periodically for maintenance I don't have the skills to do
myself"), but there we have it.

My point: We haven't designed computers for end users appropriately.  It
is not the fault of the end user that they're driving around the crapmobile
we've provided for them.  If you go to the store to get a new computer, you
get a choice of crapmobiles all with engines by the same company, unless 
you go to the fruit store, in which case you get a somewhat less obviously
vulnerable engine by a different company.  The users don't know how to take
apart the engines and repair them, and the engines aren't usefully protected
sufficiently to ensure that they don't get fouled, so you have a Problem.

... JG
-- 
Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
"We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I
won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN)
With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.